These Colors Don't Run!
Posted on 10/01/2001 4:06:24 PM PDT by Lecie
Flag display causes ruckus at Holy Cross
Monday, October 01, 2001
By Emilie Astell
Worcester (Mass) Telegram & Gazette Staff
WORCESTER-- Margaret Post took an American flag to work three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to mourn the death of Todd Beamer, a close personal friend who was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 when the hijacked jet crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
She did not realize, she said Thursday, that by hanging the flag in a second-floor hallway of Beavens Hall at the College of the Holy Cross she would cause a commotion. Instead of allowing the flag to remain in place, Royce Singleton, chairman of the college's Sociology Department, asked Mrs. Post, a secretary in the department, to take it down.
She refused.
He took it down, folded it and placed the flag on her desk, she said.
“I was doing a very patriotic thing on a national day of mourning,” she said. Her only intention, she added, was to mourn the death of a friend and honor his memory.
Mrs. Post's husband, Robert, worked with Mr. Beamer at Oracle Corp. Mrs. Post and Lisa Beamer had accompanied their husbands on a business trip to Europe and returned home on Sept. 10.
Todd Beamer is believed to have been one of the passengers who tried to stop the hijackers. He called his wife on a cellphone minutes before the plane crashed, telling her that he and others planned to overpower the terrorists.
Mrs. Beamer was honored Sept. 20 at the Capitol during President Bush's address to the nation and received a standing ovation when she was introduced by the president.
Mr. Singleton acknowledged in an interview Thursday afternoon that he had taken the flag down, but declined to explain his reasons, saying that there was “nothing to discuss with anyone outside the college.”
“I don't want to get into why it happened,” he said. “It was a decision I very much regret having made for many reasons.”
Mrs. Post said she explained to Mr. Singleton that she was mourning a friend, but he told her that displaying the flag would make some students uncomfortable. After the incident, she received a letter from Mr. Singleton in which he expressed remorse, she said.
Mr. Singleton denied Thursday night that he said anything about students to Mrs. Post.
“There is nothing that I can say that will make anybody understand the social context in which this occurred,” he said.
There was still lingering shock, anxiety and anger that Friday, he said. Seeing the flag in the hallway upset him, he added, and “stirred certain emotions in me.” He did not elaborate on what kinds of emotions he experienced.
Two other professors in the department, whom Mrs. Post declined to identify, agreed with Mr. Singleton that the flag should be removed, she said.
The incident upset Mrs. Post and prompted her to leave the campus before lunchtime that Friday, Sept. 14. She returned to work the following Wednesday.
“I started the day in honor and left in embarrassment and tears,” the Auburn resident said. “I'm a very patriotic person. I fly an American flag outside my home every day with a light on it.”
When she returned to work, Mrs. Post met with Mr. Singleton and Stephen C. Ainlay, dean of the college. An agreement was reached allowing Mrs. Post to display a flag in her office. She now has a small flag on top of her desk.
Holy Cross spokeswoman Katherine B. McNamara called the incident a “knee-jerk reaction” on the part of Mr. Singleton and one that does not characterize the college.
“The campus is filled with American flags,” she said Thursday night. “Holy Cross stands for academic freedom.”
As news of the incident spread through Beavens Hall, Mrs. Post said, an employee in the psychology department, which is on the third floor of the building, retrieved the flag that had been taken down. The flag was then displayed in the third-floor hallway, with no objections.
An employee at Holy Cross for eight years, Mrs. Post said she still enjoys working there, although it has been stressful since the incident.
“I know the professors in the department had a different interpretation of the flag than I have,” she said, “but it's not every day a secretary stands up to professors.”
It was posted here
"She refused.
"He took it down, folded it and placed the flag on her desk, she said.
...
Mr. Singleton acknowledged ... he had taken the flag down,...
"'There is nothing that I can say that will make anybody understand the social context in which this occurred,' he said."
What, ho! We have a chairman of a department of sociology who cannot explain the social context in which some event in which he was involved occurred? Sounds to me as if old Royce is an incompetent buffoon -- and being incompetent is one of the few reasons for which a college can fire a tenured faculty member. Are there any Holy Cross alumni or trustees here?
Memoirs of a Banana Republican:
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Jimmy’s Flag |
I think some of these leftist students need to learn a little TOLERAMCE, don't you? Meaning they can just put the hell up with it.
I can't imagine the ego involved, to be offended at the sight of another nation's flag on its home soil(or one's own flag, for that matter). I have a dream that one day I'll be able to spend an entire year in Italy--and if that ever happens, the sight of the Italian flag in Florence or Venice is certainly not going to cause me a nanosecond's concern. It's ITALY, for crying out loud.
We have to stop this nonsense. And if we can only stop it by scaring people $#!*less with our vociferous objections, then so be it. Tell them castigation is the flip side of free speech, which they claim to love. I've had to "tolerate" tons of things I didn't like over the past decade; now it's their turn.
If this were my alma mater I would be calling everyone I knew from my college days and urging them to write to the college President and withhold all financial support until this idiot were at least censured if not kicked out.
Can you imagine the ruckus if a conservative tore down one of the peacenicks banners because he was offended?
As a professor of the pseudo-science of sociology, you know that you seek to reduce human behavior to it's lowest common denominator.
It is sociologists and their gullible students who glorify cop killers like mumia while dishonoring American heroes like Todd Beamer.
I'm sure you are puzzled that your behavior has created such a stir. Maybe if you studied real science you could learn to do something useful. Considering where your head is now, maybe you should consider proctology.
Good luck. I tried to get something similar going with the University of Texas, where both my parents graduated, but it's looking like a wasted effort. THE UNIVERSITIES DON'T CARE.
Mom told me that when she was a freshman at UT in the fifties, they all had to take an oath and swear they'd never become communists :D. Now UT gives tenure to a communist dickweed like Robert Jensen, who just doesn't know when to shut up.
What this really boils down to is the Professor being intolerant of other's views and beliefs, while at the same time, claiming that the flag being displayed may cause others to be uncomfortable. That's the zany world of "new science" for you.
I hope that Dr. Singleton would be as concerned if one were to display on exhibit a Crucifix immersed in urine or other such provacative scene. We can only hope he would, or perhaps he would claim that the right to express one's self is an important right, indeed.
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